Today marks the beginning of Counseling Awareness Month. This year's theme is Self-Care, Advocacy, and Inclusion. I thought I would begin the month by sharing a short thought on self-care. As a therapist, I often hear clients express that they do not want to be selfish and that they would rather be selfless. This belief is so ingrained into our society’s norms that it often comes up during therapy whenever a person expresses how they feel about a situation, decides to set boundaries, or follows their dreams instead of expectations from others.
I am always struck by the meaning of these words. The goal of so many is to be selfless, to have less self, to diminish one’s self in order to not be selfish. So many of us therapists feel the same way. We are taught, one way or another, before we become therapists, that in order to help others, to hold other’s stories, we need to be without self. This makes the concept of self-care confusing and can cause inner dissonance. How can we care for ourselves when internally we are believing that in order to care for others we must be selfless? Maybe it is time to internalize the messages we hear every time we take an airplane; please put your oxygen mask on first before assisting others. Please take care of yourself so that you can be there for others. Please hold space for yourself, in whatever way works for you, so that you can truly hold space for others. Self-care is not synonymous with selfishness and selflessness is never the goal.